Ravens soar to victory over Axemen

Acadia Axemen's Erik Nissen, second from right, and Carleton Ravens' Cam Smythe battle for a rebound during the first half of quarterfinal action in the USports men's basketball national championship in Halifax on Thursday. (DARREN CALABRESE / The Canadian Press)

Unfortunately, they don’t award trips to the semifinals for moral victories.

For three quarters and three minutes, the Acadia Axemen looked like they could hand the Carleton Ravens their first loss of the season.

But Carleton ended the game on a 22-8 run and posted an 81-64 victory in the last quarterfinal at the U Sports men’s basketball Final 8 at Scotiabank Centre on Thursday.

“If you had told me that would have been the rebounding, I would have thought it would be a lot closer than 17 in the end,” said Duffie.

Redmen 88 Varsity Reds 57

In the opening game of the tournament, the McGill Redmen opened the second quarter on a 13-1 run, turning a tie game into no contest.

McGill’s swarming defence turned what had been a potent Varsity Reds offence into a turnover-prone, poor shooting unit. UNB turned the ball over 22 times and shot 31 per cent from the floor.

Further decreasing from the entertainment value was the total of 55 fouls called, including five fouls in six seconds of game time, and the rarely seen three consecutive holding fouls on the same player during one dead ball. (Actually, there was some entertainment in that.)

UNB looked flat from the start of the game, and coach Brent Baker admitted his team may have failed to bring the same intensity it did last week in winning the school’s first conference championship in half a century.

“We haven’t had a lot of championship pedigree, or history of going to these type of championships. So it was going to be a learning curve,” Baker said. “It was one of the things we had to try to do mentally, was flush that out, and we weren’t sharp to start. And that’s a tough-minded team, they get up on you, they get after it, they’re a veteran group. He’s got four fifth-year guys, and we knew they were going to get after us and come after Javon (Masters).”

Masters, the AUS MVP, scored 19 points to lead all scorers, but also had six turnovers and was tops in that category, too.

“They’re a real good, defensive-minded team,” said Masters. “In the first quarter we started off flat, and then got into a flow, but their pressure really got to us. We made it an emphasis in our game plan, to try and neutralize their pressure, but we didn’t do a good job of that.”

Redmen coach Dave DeAveiro said he and his staff debated all week how to defend Masters, concerned that their normal pressure would just speed him up and make him even more dangerous.

“But we decided that we were going to stick with our identity on defence, and try to wear him down,” DeAverio said. “We wanted to make other guys beat us, not Javon.”

Tyrell Leotaud was the only other UNB player in double figures, with ten points. By contrast, McGill, at nationals for the fourth time in five years, got double figures from five players, led by Dele Ogundokun’s 17.

“Each year we’ve gotten better at nationals, due to our experience,” Ogundokun. “I feel like the hype can get to a lot of people, we’re here like it’s just another game and we’ve got to treat it like that.”

Dinos 78 Badgers 76

Calgary squandered a 14-point first half lead but outscored Brock down the stretch to advance to the semi-finals.

Mambi Diawara had 19 points and David Kapinga 18 for the Dinos, who also have Andrew Milner of Antigonish on the roster.

“It feels awesome, especially having watched it for so many years. The atmosphere, just the feeling of being out there with your family watching you, it’s indescribable,” said Milner of the experience of taking the Scotiabank Centre court. He had about 15 people there to watch him. “Mom, dad, both siblings, both grandparents, three cousins and then a lot of people I went to high school that I haven’t seen since graduation.”

Milner attended Rothesay Collegiate in Saint John for high school, but has represented Nova Scotia on provincial teams in the summer. On Thursday, he played six minutes and had five points on two of three shooting.

“Obviously, as a first-year I’m not expecting big minutes, just go in, be solid, do what I can for the team.”

Rams 88 Golden Bears 62

Ryerson went 9-for-12 from beyond the three-point line in the first quarter, built a double digit lead and never looked back, once leading by 34. Manny Diressa made six of those threes to finish with 25 points, while Mamadou Gueye topped Alberta with 12.